New Mexico residents are likely acquainted with the juniper-dotted hills, blooming yucca and magnificent canyons in photographer Craig Varjabedian's Ghost Ranch and the Faraway Nearby. Although Ghost Ranch has become a well-known regional spot—mostly through its O'Keeffe-associated fame— it is anything but commonplace. In O'Keeffe's letter to the director of Ghost Ranch, published in Varjabedian's book Ghost Ranch and the Faraway Nearby, she wrote, “This was my world immediately—big and wide—with no one living in it.” The openness and tranquility O'Keeffe referred to is evident in Varjabedian's photographs.

Because of Ghost Ranch's proximity, there is the possibility for New Mexicans to have a sort of neighborly disregard for its beauty. The wonders in our midst are often more difficult to recognize than those on the other side of the hill. Ghost Ranch's familiarity only makes Varjabedian's photographs that much more important; he gives voice to a silent environment that is often superseded by the hectic bustle of day-to-day existence.

As Varjabedian's photography reminds us, our surroundings are more than mere backdrop; they are an interactive mirror of our inner selves and an echo of our lives, histories, and collective identity. Varjabedian describes the landscape as his teacher. In the preface of his book, he writes, “Here I have learned that light has moods: it comes to life, flourishes, and then dies.”

If the role of a photographer is to make the natural into the supernatural, the earthly into the ethereal, Varjabedian does his job perfectly. In the patterns of shadows, the hard lines of rocks, the texture of grasses, the formations of clouds and the meandering paths of cracks in the earth, there is novelty that is unavoidable.